


Firsts for My Love

by BusyBea18



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28376175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BusyBea18/pseuds/BusyBea18
Summary: The Flash Season One 2014:non-canon explanations and events of canon elements of West-AllenIris/Barry/Eddie Triangle the way it’s written for a Barry/Iris fan.Additional Tags:Friends to Lovers	Angst		Romance	Mature Audience	Sexual ContentThanks to Miss C Marie for inspiring me to write my first fan fiction story, and for giving me the idea to use the cabin.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Comments: 32
Kudos: 44





	1. Engaged

Engaged

She was angry because her father would not let her become a cop. Angry that she wasted her high school afternoons doing jumps and splits and practicing cheer leading. Mad that her dad would not let her join Cop Cadettes at Central City High School. She was mad that her mother left her and mad that she lost her mother’s ring. Angry that her dad did not tell her how Barry felt about her—for years! Mad that he would not make her face her own fears of love and Barry and friendship and failure. Why did he let them flounder? Even mad at herself for getting rid of her tattoo. And most of all, she was angry because her dad let her become engaged to Eddie Thawne. Mad at Barry because he let her become engaged to Eddie Thawne. And mad at herself.

_Let’s get married, Barry._

_We will, Iris._

_No, let’s get married now. Let’s make an altar. It’ll be so much fun._

_Okay. We’ll get married now, and we’ll get married when we grow up._

She sat in her bedroom and cried so hard, making a mess of her face with her practice makeup, the mascara and rouge streaked with her tears. She got up from her chair and went into her bathroom. She turned on the light and she stood watching herself. She looked like a sad clown, and not the beautiful girl under the ruined makeup. She ran water, got the soap and lathered her face. She scrubbed her face until the soap turned a dirty mascara gray. She rinsed her face, then washed her face again, more gently this time. She grabbed a hand towel and blotted her face dry, then she stood and stared at herself some more. What if she had succeeded in getting all of the things she wanted, instead of failing? She clicked off the bathroom light, then went to her vanity. She sat down and watched herself in the mirror. Who did she see? She ran her fingers through her jewelry box, pulling out neat little drawers for her special pieces. She pulled out the ring on the necklace that Barry gave her that past Christmas. The ring was like Barry—hers, but not hers. The ring was her mother’s—but not her mother’s. Only Barry seemed to make it so. She had only a few hours until she married Eddie Thawne. She lay on her bed. She started to cry. She said through her tears, “I hate that he got struck by lightning. I hate that coma. I hate STAR Labs. And I hate Harrison Wells.”

She cried herself to sleep like that, the night before her wedding day.


	2. Chapter 2

Tattoo

Now thinking back, which was dumber? Getting the tattoo, or removing it?

Iris was at Central City University. She was in her second year and still her dad was telling her what to do. He didn’t want to see any tattoos on her body, not even little nondescript flowery ones. Tattoos were for the bodies he threw tarp over, guys in prison, or girls in detention centers. Nevertheless, Iris had decided that on her own, she would get a tattoo. Her dad and her best friend could not know about it.

She had walked past the tattoo parlor she selected about a million nervous times. Her dorm roommate had helped her out. Aided and abetted her, her dad would say. “Here, Iris.” She plopped a book of tattoo samples in Iris’s lap, and as Iris dreamed of a possible tattoo, together they thumbed through the catalog. After a while, Iris said, “This one.”

“That ornate, flowery thing?” her roommate asked. “Yeah,” she said. “It’ll hide my real tat.”

“So, you have a tattoo in mind already?”

“Yeah.”

She remembered handing the tattoo artist her selection. After a few trials, finally she approved his sketch. She sat and endured the sound of the instrument, the pricking of the needle. She could feel it being drawn just below her left shoulder.

When the drawing was over, He gave her a mirror to take a look. It resembled a gold filigree ring inset with the bloom of a beautiful flower, clean and gorgeous, crisp lines of the gorgeous lettering. It announced a bright yellow against her skin, but the tattoo artist promised it would mute into a quiet gold. The stem of the bloom that she chose to connect the lettering hid what she worried about, now she admitted to herself. But she had approved the stencil. Her skin was young and tight, the lines on the tattoo clear. What was not clear was why she wanted this tattoo just below the back of her left shoulder, where no one would see the beautiful artwork.

Like a scrape with a bit of a sting to it; like a scratching or a bee sting. Her shoulder was sore for three days. She slept in comfortable tees and slept on her stomach. She took care of her tattoo. She loved it actually. It lay like a gold necklace piece onto her skin of warm cinnamon smoothness, she the only one who mattered that knew of its existence, just below her shoulder.

She got rid of the tattoo because she believed she made bad decisions when Barry was not there to guard her interests and safety. He lived in the science buildings of late, and she barely saw him. On the day that she decided to visit his dorm room, to show him the tattoo, she chickened out. She did visit him though, which when she entered his room, he smiled up from out of his theoretical distractions, hopeful and happy to see her. They shared a pizza in his dorm room, minus the two slices that Iris actually ate.

What hurt was that finally she felt comfortable enough to show him the sketch, and if he liked it, she would show him the actual tattoo. But Becky Cooper called him and Iris bit her lip, controlling feelings she refused to define. Becky’s pretty face and her number came up on Barry’s phone. Iris turned away, pretending to grab another slice of pizza as he made a late date to see her. When he hung up, he explained it was a late study group.

“You and Becky and who else?”

“No, there are a few of us.”

Iris didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at the pizza slice she didn’t know why she had lost an appetite for.

“So, you wanted to show me something?”

“Did I?”

She went back to her dorm room and was so angry at herself for wanting to cry that she cried. She lay on her right shoulder, protecting the soreness, but also the beauty of her tattoo on the other shoulder.

It wasn’t until he took her to a house party of a mutual friend. It had been months and Iris had forgotten about her tattoo and wore the dress with the halter bodice, exposing her shoulders.

When they were about to leave the party, he helped her with her wrap, but instead of Iris feeling the soft faux fur come around her shoulders, she felt his fingers, tracing the letters of the tattoo. They each wanted to say something, but they didn’t. He wrapped her with the fur, his arms lingering longer than necessary.

She turned around with this timid smile of a weak, silent confession, looking up at him. She said, “Thanks, Barry. For being my date tonight.” It seemed like forever before he said, “You know I’d do anything for you, Iris.”

Why they never mentioned the tattoo, neither one knew, just that their phone conversations were softer, more bashful, punctuated with soft nervous laughter, inexplicable sighs from the both of them.

One night, just before they got off the phone, Barry said softly, “Iris… your tattoo….”

“Just don’t tell my dad.”

“No, I want to say… I’ve been meaning to say… I love it.”

There was silence for a while. Then she said, “Thanks, Barry.”

Last conversation she remembered about her tattoo was when her new roommate spotted it. “What a lovely tattoo.” Iris turned her back to the mirror, to look at it herself. “Is that a flower,” her roommate said.

“Yes,” Iris said. “It’s an Iris.”

“…what a beautiful bloom… wait, what’s hidden along the stem…can I….” The new roommate came closer. “Are those fancy letters…wait a minute… it says… Bartholomew?”

She should have kept the tattoo. But it was like muscle memory. She still felt it guarding her and her feelings.


	3. Chapter 3

Pictures of Another Place and Time

It was pitch black in her room and two o’clock in the morning and she was hungry. She reached for the small vanity lamp and switched it on. She vaguely remembered her dad softly rapping on her door. She looked to her desk. He had left a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on a tray. The grill cheese was cut crosswise the way she liked it. She reached for half the sandwich, and took a bite. She put the sandwich back on the tray; it was cold and kind of greasy, but good. She got up from the bed when she eyed the old middle school picture she kept stuck between the mirror and its frame. She liked looking at it from time to time and was glad it was not lost amongst the piles of pictures trapped and forgotten in their picture albums.

She smiled forlornly. The best back to school picture. She pulled it out of the mirror’s frame and studied it. They were twelve, ready for school, wearing fresh expectations and their backpacks. She ran her fingers over the two kids standing in the foyer by the front door. First day of seventh grade, first time she noticed how tall Barry had gotten. They were growing up. She eyed another picture on her desk, when they _had_ grown up. She and Barry called them the threesome.

The threesome were their three epic pictures. Everyone in the family had been invited to own a copy. Everyone knew of them. Barry had one in his locker at STAR Labs, on his desk in his lab at CCPD, and in his bedroom. Her dad had placed them in the living room with their other pictures, and she and Barry carried them forever in their phones. She loved them, they anchored her and Barry, so what Eddie did to one of them should have been her clue.

It started when Eddie would pop into Barry’s sick room at STAR Labs. Iris would always be sitting by his bedside either speaking of her day to him, or softly reading a book to him, or just sitting, trying to figure out what they could do to bring him back. _How can we get Barry back?_ Most often, Joe would be there too. “How’s he doing?” Eddie would ask Joe. Joe would always sigh, “The same.”

He’d always try to catch Iris’s eye to ask her how she was holding up, but most times, she would just ignore him. “Well, let me know if I can do anything, Joe. Let me know if I can help.”

It must have been a month into Barry’s coma when Eddie came in with the usual, “Any progress?” Then he asked Iris if she needed a break. They could go to Jitters for a coffee. But Iris looked as if she was still in her melancholy mood. “No thank you.”

Eddie kept visiting with the pleasantries until, maybe four months into Barry’s coma, Iris gave him a little sad smile of recognition when he came to visit. Joe worked that evening so she sat alone with a picture in her lap. She gently put it back on the table, beside Barry.

“That’s a nice picture,” Eddie said. “Looks like you two were having fun.”

“We were,” Iris said, giving the picture a whimsical smile as she glanced back at it. She and Barry were sitting outside, perched on the ground, and Iris was laughing her head off. Barry sat beside her smiling, but seeming just content to be beside her. “That’s his favorite,” Iris said.

“His favorite?”

“Of our threesome. We call them our threesome. We had so much fun that day. My dad was throwing us a big barbecue, and we invited all of our friends. We were headed back to CCU in a few days. Here….” She pulled out her phone and flipped through the photos. “This is one,” she said, sharing the photo with Eddie. “But this is my favorite here.”

Barry and Iris sat side by side. Iris had her arm through his, and they looked content and happy.

“Our friend Tuey took these pics. He was telling jokes and taking pics and Barry and I were forgetting that we had to go our separate ways for a little while. That he had to be on the other side of the campus, where the nerds roamed, and I had to… I had to make my peace with my journalism senior year. But that day we were laughing and having fun.” Her eyes sparkled and came alive for the first time since Eddie had been in her presence. She gave Eddie a glimpse of the beautiful girl in the picture and who she had been, before her friend was struck by lightning. She stayed quiet in examining the picture.

“But then Tuey stopped and looked at us,” Iris continued, eyes glued to what use to be—“at Barry and me—and Tuey said let me take a picture of my favorite couple. And we sat up, and I put my arm through his,” she said, glancing up at Barry, who seemed so far away from her now, so untouchable. “Someone could see, and had acknowledged that we were a couple for the first time.” She extended her phone to Eddie, with the gentlest of smiles. “So, this is my favorite.”

“So, he’s your boyfriend then?”

“He’s my best friend. My best best friend.”

“Well, Iris,” he said, “I’ve been asking you out to Jitters, just for a break, and you’ve been saying no, so….” His hands went up as her eyes widened… “I don’t want to be a bother to you, so—the next time I ask, and you want to say yes—will you say yes?”

They both shared a friendly smile, then, and she answered, “Yes.”

So that next evening, Iris let him take her to Jitters, and Eddie thought he was on the right path with her, until a few evenings later, Eddie got thrown out of Barry’s room for good.

Joe was about to sponge bathe Barry and Iris got up and said, “I’m sorry, Eddie, we’ll have to leave. My dad is about to bathe Barry.”

“Oh yeah, right, sorry?”

But there was always something bothering Eddie about the young man in bed. Even though he flatlined his EKGs, and seemed in a deep coma—

“He seems really healthy to be this sick,” Eddie said. “Like, really healthy.”

Iris began shooing Eddie out of the room. “He would be so embarrassed if he knew I was in the room when Dad bathed him.”

“He has abs,” Eddie said, walking toward the door, but looking back towards Barry, who was naked from the waist up as Joe began his bathing ritual. “How long has he been comatose?”

“Four months. I don’t know. Leave, please, Mr. Thawne.”

“He hasn’t wasted. Why not?”

“He’s a healthy, young man.”

“We all lose muscle when we lie immobile in bed this long. Why isn’t he sallow? Why hasn’t any of his muscles atrophied?”

Iris laughed. “Are you looking at his muscles? Yes, he has muscles.”

“But were they always this defined? In fact, to be a slim guy, he’s toned. He looks really fit.”

Later that night Cisco Ramon called Iris and said that Detective Eddie Thawne wanted to ask him some questions concerning Barry Allen, wanted to ask, among other questions, if he had any bed sores, because he would guess that he didn’t. Of course, Ramon said he did not divulge Barry’s personal information, and that he couldn’t accommodate him in any way regarding Barry. “I know he’s a cop, so I thought you should know,” Cisco said.

From then on, Eddie was banned from Barry’s room and Iris refused his calls. A week later, while Iris sat beside Barry’s bed, she got a picture text. It was from Eddie. It was a picture of her and Barry. In the picture, his face was turned towards her, and she was gently brushing back Barry’s hair. Her other hand was forever stilled in a loving caress of the sleeping man’s face. The evening sun had caught her in her beauty. She looked beatific, caring for Barry in those seconds.

Eddie texted, “This says it all. I know you care for him. Lucky him.”

It was a pleasant likeness of Barry. He was pale, but his face held his same youthfulness. He did look healthy. She even liked how Eddie caught the attention she paid to her best friend. Her eyes welled with tears, she finally acknowledging the loneliness, the hopelessness and loss, the fear that she would never speak to Barry again, and that even Eddie could see it. She downloaded the picture immediately. Then, through her tears, she texted Eddie. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”


	4. Chapter 4

Married Woman 

He didn’t permit himself a glance at his watch till after 6pm. After 6pm meant she was married. They could both get on with their lives.

He paced around his bedroom, not wanting his eyes to well up, but as they did, he wiped them with the palms of both hands, like a kid. He stopped and eyed his suitcase, and oddly, Iris’s, that was left standing beside his. Maybe the excitement of this day flummoxed her, and had her doing crazy things like coming into his room by accident, or maybe to say goodbye. Then she got flustered and left it.

It was an autumn evening, getting dark, dreary, and desolate. His phone rang, pulling his thoughts away from her. He pulled his phone from his pocket to check who it was. He was in no mood to talk, especially not to this guy. He brought the phone up to his ear. “Eddie. Yeah.”

“Hi, Bear.” There was silence for a moment.” “No hard feelings?” He pictured Eddie’s smug face even when he was trying to be sincerely nice.

“If this makes Iris happy, no hard feelings.” A part of him believed that and wanted that. _If it makes her happy,_ he could find a way to go on.

“You know, Barry, we don’t have to be enemies. I know Iris loves you. I’m not stupid. She considers you family.”

“We won’t be enemies, Eddie, but why the call?”

“It’s Iris. She’ll be over soon. She left the chapel, right after the ceremony. I tried to get her to enter the reception banquet room with me for a minute, but no, she had to go home to get her suitcase. Apparently, she left it in her room.”

Barry stared at Iris’s suitcase, standing beside his. “Yeah, she probably did,” he told Eddie.

“When she gets there, don’t talk too much. She wanted to say goodbye to you, Barry, but now is not the time for long good byes. She experienced your long goodbye. And look, don’t blame her. She would have sat by your side at STAR Labs, wiping your face, and combing your hair, talking to you, as if you actually heard her, falling asleep herself, until she and you both turned gray. Did you want that for her? To turn old and gray by your bedside? Did you want that for her, Barry?” Eddie’s voice rang with an infuriating sincerity, but with a surprisingly humble yet emphatic need for Barry to believe him, and to not press any more issues with him or with Iris.

“I would never want Iris to grow old waiting for me. I would never want her to waste her life.” _But it was just nine months. Not years._

“So blame me,” Eddie said. “And look, Barry, I apologize about being frustrated with you. I admit I was jealous. I can say that now. Also, I apologize for feeling that Iris was a piece of contest jewelry that we competed for.”

_I took your girl. So get over it, Allen._

“I apologize for it all, Barry. Okay?

Both men were quiet.

“You hear me, Barry?” Eddie asked, his voice shaky with uncertainty. Barry saw Iris’s car pulling up in the driveway. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll send her right back.”

He turned off his phone, then slipped it into his suitcase. _No. No one. Not tonight._ When he got back to the window, he watched Iris get out of her car. She was beautiful in the dusk of the evening, her hair upswept with interwoven flowers, hairpin jewelry holding back curls and sparkling in them against the night, the white silk of her dress sparkling as well. She looked to Barry’s window, searching for him maybe, and there he was. She slowed her pace and started to smile but seemed too afraid to. Seconds later, he heard the door open, but he didn’t move from the window. He just stared outside, wondering how cold the cabin would be. Two weeks away from CCPD, from STAR Labs—and from her—is what he needed. He needed to reassess who he was going to be without her.

He would fish at the pond. He would hike through the woods on his dad’s property. He would take walks to the town. He would eat alone. He’d run when it became unbearable. So much space out there. He was going to fix up that place, wait for his dad to return from the big skies out West. Maybe Barry would not go back to Central City Police Department, or STAR Labs, but meet his dad out West, out in Washington State, and live there.

Her dress rustled as she came up the stairs, her footsteps moving closer to his bedroom. The room that Iris barely entered. They tried to study in there, to share music in there, tried to make it a safe zone, friendly and neutral. But eventually, they were too afraid of what could happen.

Once he was sick and she took soup to him as he lay in bed. _Twelfth grade._ She came in his room with the soup and crackers on a tray. She came in quietly and set the tray on his bed. She said, “How do you feel?”

“Okay.” He smiled, loving the attention from her. He was really under the weather, but maybe he’d play sick now and again. Right now, he watched her survey his room.

She looked up: an old dog-eared poster on the wall over his bed that simply stated _the more precisely you know the position of a particle, the less precisely you can simultaneously know the momentum of that same particle._ Another glance across the room and it was a Stephen Hawking poster. But his all-time favorite poster was tacked on the wall behind her. She turned. It was the massive STAR Labs of Central City and confidently standing in the foreground was Dr. Harrison Wells. Some of his clothes were piled up in a chair, but neatly. For a guy, Barry’s room was actually clean.

“Here.” She brought the spoon full of hot soup to his mouth, and he couldn’t help feeling special. “Thanks, Iris.” She fed him spoonful after spoonful and he didn’t resist. How could he? He loved everything she did with him. When the bowl was empty, she lay down the spoon, and dabbed his mouth with the napkin.

She removed the tray and sat closer to him on the bed. She felt his forehead, then with careful gentle fingers, she brushed back his hair. “There. Better,” she said. When she caressed his cheek, he put his hand on hers, and they stared at each other forever it seemed, until they were lost in each other it seemed to him. Suddenly, she lowered her eyes, and seemed embarrassed. He was still holding on to her hand at his face.

Gently, she pulled her hand away. “I’ll be back later,” she said, rising from his bed. But he slept all that day and all that night. She did not come back.

It reminded him of the first time he knew he was in trouble with her. That first time she got out of Thawne’s car—even though her dating him hurt Barry, 10pm dates hurt, but nothing like lying in bed wide awake at 3am and she was still not home.

He was at the window as he was now, when she got out of his car at four in the morning. It felt as if she tried not to, but she looked up to his window and they caught each other in a moment of a new threesome—him, her, and that detective.

Then when she said, “Eddie asked me to move in with him,” he felt like he couldn’t breathe, like something grabbed him that he had no control over and that he couldn’t out run.

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him… I’d have to see.”

But move in with him she did. And funny how she seemed to spend more time at home than at Eddie’s.

Every Tuesday she came over with ingredients to cook for her dad, “… and to make sure you’re eating more than pizzas and burgers,” she told Barry. Sometimes she’d be back with a movie. “We never got to see this one... and….”

He still loved sitting beside her watching old movies. She still fell asleep on his shoulder. His hands knew a conscious, new propriety, but he held her anyway as she slept, and thought bitter-sweetly how this was still the norm for him and her.

He knew Eddie and Iris had on-again, off-again fights, and at CCPD he started to approach Eddie about it, that Iris seemed more unhappy than happy with him, but he knew he might sock the cocky detective he if snidely called him Iris’s brother again when he knew damn well that he wasn’t.

One of those moments was when Barry walked through CCPD to get to Joe’s office, but noticed that Eddie and Iris were having an animated conversation. Protective instincts of Iris compelled him to walk over to Eddie’s desk. He said, “Everything okay?” Eddie and Iris both looked caught. She had their picture that he’d noticed was on Eddie’s desk. It was a fight over Tuey’s picture. He kept walking.

That night she didn’t sleep at Thawne’s, but came home after work. She had been quiet that whole night, hold up in the kitchen with a recipe book, she giving the recipe book her faithful concentration in an effort to make her dinner turn out like the picture.

With Joe still at work, the two of them sat together at the dinner table.

“Thawne’s working the late shift?”

She lowered her eyes from his question and stabbed her cut asparagus. “No, he’s at his apartment.”

“You know this is really good, Iris.”

She looked up, heartened. “Really?” Her beauty shown through to him, even in a disquieted mood. He took another bite of her glazed carrots. “These are great.”

She smiled.

God he loved her.

But her dinners kept coming. One night, Eddie’s number came up on Barry’s phone. He was about to sit down with Iris for dinner. “Eddie,” he said. Iris was coming to the table with a platter of one of the meals that she loved: pot roast, potatoes, and string beans. Enough for a small dinner party. Iris put the dish down on the table, ignoring Barry’s acknowledgment of Eddie. She went back into the kitchen and returned with two stem glasses and a bottle of red wine. “This should be a good one.”

But in the middle of their meal, Barry said, “He wanted to know if you were here.” Her eyes flashed impatience at Barry, then she sipped her wine.

“Iris, I don’t want to get between you two. I mean, if you _want_ him….”

“He complains about everything,” Iris said, “but he can’t complain about me loving my family.”

_Loving my family._ He took a sip from his wine for his composure, because he knew what she meant. He was a part of her family the way Joe was a part of her family. He sighed, and took another sip of wine. That was their problem. “If you want him,” Barry said, “fix things with him.”

So, Iris decided to have a dinner party with Eddie and Barry and Barry’s date. “I was thinking of that Caitlin Snow girl. She seems nice—and smart, the way you like them.” She threw him a casual but unconsciously curt look, then continued with her meal.

“Caitlin? We’ve never had the slightest… she’s just my doctor.”

“You mean the Flash’s doctor.”

“His doctor, yes. Iris, let me invite my own date.”

When the dinner party date came around, Iris opened the door to Becky Cooper. She walked in not like the shy nerd girl, but confident and pretty as always and correcting Iris that she was _Doctor_ Cooper. “But I’ve been one for a while now,” she told Iris.

Once they were all seated at the table, Becky commented, “Iris, we haven’t talked in ages. Do you still work at Jitters?”

“Why no,” she answered, feeling less than smart already.

“I’m only asking because I very rarely come out of the lab.”

Barry said proudly, “She writes for CCPN. She’s a journalist. I’m sure you’ve seen her byline. She does very good work.”

She really wanted to look up from her plate and say, “So there, Becky!” But Iris thought she would just sit and smile and let Barry do the heavy lifting. Sweet Barry.

“Oh,” Becky said, I guess I’ll look for her articles. I remember you showing me one, Bear, but I thought it was from her little blog.”

Iris eyes flashed at the sound of Becky calling Barry ‘Bear.’ Only after she settled her annoyance with that did she realize she had called _Central City Citizen_ her little blog. Sure, it was little but it was gaining viewership and it was more than a ‘little blog.’

Eddie scrutinized the trio with the feeling that Barry and the women were in the same dance that he was in with Iris and Barry, and his frustrations with the two resurfaced. Only Dr. Cooper sounded chipper. “You were a great barista, Iris. You were always so pleasant to customers. And you’re a detective, Mr. Thawne? Barry told me, among other things.”

“I think of myself as a good detective. And I’m sure you agree, Allen.” Calling him Allen put Barry on alert. Eddie always had something he wanted Barry to know when he called him Allen. “And the Department sees Barry as its most valued C.S.I. Even though I think he cheats with help from STAR Labs,” Eddie continued.

Barry looked up from his plate and gave Eddie a look. “STAR Labs? I thought we were talking about CCPD.”

“Barry has a connection to STAR Labs,” Eddie blurted out, “and he won’t tell anyone. My question is, how many people sitting at this table know about that?”

“Eddie, just stop,” Iris said.

“…. Because I think the scientists at STAR Labs know how to regenerate a body that has been hit with trauma--say, hit with lightning?”

“Eddie, you just don’t know what you’re talking about,” Iris replied, but not looking at Eddie, stabbing at her food and glancing at Barry.

Then Eddie came right out and said what was on his mind. “Do you know the Flash, Barry? Because I think he’s connected to STAR Labs, and so are you.”

“That’s not true,” Barry said.

“No,” you are totally wrong, Eddie,” Iris said.

“They pile up on me,” Eddie said, feigning a laugh, looking at Becky but throwing a sharp bitter gaze at Iris. Becky said, “Is there any proof that there is a Flash? And if so, where is it? The proof. Let’s study it.”

Eddie looked as if he could not contain his anger. He looked as if he was about to say his familiar mantra, “She never takes my side,” but instead, he said, “Those two, they keep secrets. From their lovers.” Barry turned away from his caustic accusation, and didn’t want to hear the word ‘lover’ used to define Eddie with Iris.

“But the worst part,” Eddie said—“or maybe the best part—is that they keep secrets from themselves.” Finally, he said, to no one in particular, “You know what, I hate being lied to.” And he sat back in his chair and he put down his fork.

The four made a misery out of the dinner. Later that night, when small talk had thinned to an end, when Barry walked Becky to the door, she brought her hand to his face and she gave him a kiss on the mouth. “I enjoyed myself. And your company,” she said in a low intimate voice, but Iris could still hear. She couldn’t make out how Barry responded, just that she stopped cold in her tracks, witnessing his low intimate response meant for no one’s ears but Becky’s. It stunned her to actually witness that Barry’s life extended beyond the West’s house and beyond her. She quickly composed herself. “Nice to… have you for dinner, Becky… I mean Dr. Cooper.” The women exchanged a few bland comments and laughed a little, Iris’s obviously strained, her brows not hiding her distress. When Barry caught Eddie’s countenance, his staring, Eddie stood in back with this contemptible scowl, but at whom or what, Barry really couldn’t make out.

Becky was almost out of the door. She said, “Iris, this was a lovely dinner. Glad to have met your fiancé.”

“Oh, he’s not my fiancé,” Iris said, as Barry said, “He’s not her fiancé.”

Eddie had reacquired his composure. “Well, maybe one day.”

It was that awful night that was the catalyst, Barry was sure. She did not leave with Eddie. She went to her old room. He had come back hours later, from running. He ran through Central City, through Star City, and a few towns beyond. He stopped at some out of the way bar and had a beer, knowing it would have no effect on him. Why did he drink anything but what Cisco and Caitlin concocted for him? Why, if it had no effect. His actions, just futile. His inactions, the same. When he came back, he stood in the foyer of the darkened house. Then he went to Iris’s room and gently rapped at her door.

She opened the door to the darkened room. She was in her gown and robe and he knew she had been crying. “You’ve been running. Your cheeks are flushed.” She raised her hand to touch his face, then stopped, remembering their new circumstances. He took her hand in his anyway and drew her into one of his hugs. But he knew she could feel it was not a thanks for dinner hug, or a happy birthday hug, or any other Joe and Barry family hug and in so doing, he released the young boy and girl, he let go of the best friend teens. His mouth was at her ear. He said, “I love you, Iris.” His first time being absolutely clear. Then he moved away from her. They stood watching each other, and for a tiny moment, it looked as if she would reach out to him, maybe ask him to stay, but she let him go. He knew she watched him until he disappeared from her door, heard him take the stairs up to his room. Because he knew her.

“Barry.”

Her voice was so soft, musical still to his ears. Her voice moved his heart still. Why did he still love her?

“I knew you wouldn’t come and I understand,” he heard her say. She went to the window to where he stood, and stood beside him. They just peered out of the window, together, but apart. Finally, he felt her hand at his back, caressing him.

He remembered when she first told him about her engagement to Eddie. Eddie had hinted at it a few days before. He knew there was something Eddie wanted to tell him, dying to tell him. When he was about to leave his lab that day, Eddie came in and just started hanging around, picking up utensils, examining things, placing them down. He remembered being annoyed with Eddie. “What? What do you want?”

“Oh no nothing, Bear,” Eddie said, making a retreat from out of Barry’s lab. “See you in the morning.”

That night, he and she were both standing by the door at her dad’s place. It was impossible to know which one would leave. “So, you really like him.”

He remembered Iris sigh, as if she was really tired of the whole thing, him, Eddie, and Eddie and Barry’s tussle with each other, just maybe tired of the both of them. She said, “I liked him, yes.”

Barry stood in a quiet expectation of her explanation. Their friendship required it. It deserved it.

She relented. “He brought me out of this unhappiness that I had been in. He made me forget that whenever they took your EKG, it was always a flatline. I thought you were dead, and that they just didn’t want to tell me. He showed me that I didn’t have to cry every day.

_Heart racing so fast that it doesn’t register. That would be his._ He remembered not being able to bear another second and he phased through the wall with an explosion of speed, powered by anger and hurt.

Now he wanted to say, _You’re making this impossible for me, Iris. What do you want? Why are you here? Go to him._ But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He just let her hand roam over the contours of his back, then moved down to his waist, where his belt stopped her. She stepped in closer to him and he caught her fragrance, warm, mesmerizing, the clean and familiar fragrance of Iris. His eyes welled with tears. He still wanted her. He was a mess. He felt ashamed. She brought her hand up to his eyes and wiped away his tears. She brought his head down and held him. Then he held her. They held each other. When he felt her tears on his shirt, he pulled away. Then pressed her against him again, tighter. “Iris….” is all he said. She cried, “Barry.” They came apart and continued to stare out of the window.

They saw her dad’s car pull into the driveway, stopping suddenly. He was looking for Iris, she just knew it. She could hear Eddie’s impatient voice, always so frustrated where Barry was concerned. “Joe, go get her. It’s taking too long.” For the truth, Eddie wanted Iris to go say good bye to Barry, married to Edward Thawne and not Bartholomew Henry Allen. Go let him see how beautiful Iris was, how she slipped through his fingers. Yes, she had to say good bye to Barry, she told Eddie, and get her honeymoon suitcase. It was the only way she could get out of walking into the reception banquet room. She told him she had a gift for the man she loved in her suitcase, and she had to go get it. So, he let her go.

They watched Joe pull up into the driveway. “I know he’s come for me,” Iris said, in a panic. “I know Eddie sent him.”

Barry and Iris both watched Joe take the front stairs to the door, then heard him fidget with his keys, trying to unlock the door.

Barry leaned down and quickly kissed Iris on her cheek. He wished words would come, but they just wouldn’t. Also, if he started to talk, he may start to cry again. He moved toward his leather bag.

“Take me with you,” she whispered, as they heard Joe enter the house.

They heard Joe’s movements from downstairs. Joe’s voice bellowed. “Iris! Barry, you still home! You two here?”

He started up the stairs and would be to Barry’s bedroom door in seconds. She saw the beginnings of the flash of his lightening. He was about to phase, out of her life. “No!” she whispered. She pleaded, “Take me. Please. We need to talk. Once and for all.” They both turned to his door as Joe came in. Joe seemed puzzled, looking at Barry, then Iris. Then his eyes widened, understanding everything. Because he knew them. “No, Barry!” Joe said. “Iris, don’t do this!”

Iris picked up her suitcase, Barry swooped up his own, as if they were eloping, and as he grabbed Iris up into his arms, he swooshed her out of his bedroom. Almost immediately he sped her through a pathway, down to the highway. How did he get them away from their house and from their neighborhood street so quickly? Where did the blur of cars and houses go? He veered into a pasture where his lightening traveling through Central City would be undetected. She felt suspended yet he had her, she felt the air, yet she could breathe. She held him around his neck and looked back to see the dance of his magnificent lightening with the night, a swirling, streaming combination of yellow intertwining white, chasing behind them. In his arms and in his lightning. It made her night wonderous, beautiful, moving away from the black night with the power of his speed force. She made out the trees flying past her, clouds speeding overhead as she looked up in wonder. Then he stopped suddenly and gently placed her down. They stood looking at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then his arm came away from her waist. She recorded: Another first: Moving through his lightening while the world bends to his will.


	5. Chapter 5

The Cabin

There were no town lights where the cabin sat. It was off the road and you either knew where it was, or you didn’t. “It’s pitch-black out here, Barry,” she said. “Why not swoosh us in the cabin?” She felt his hand grab hers and she followed him through darkness that would have made her feel vulnerable and afraid if Barry Allen had not been there. He said, “Wait here on the porch.” She felt his hand leave hers and saw his explosive lightening pass through the cabin. She stood with her suitcase still in her hand, and gazed at where Barry had sped through. She smiled. Why? She didn’t know, as she had not known about her feelings. Or did not want to know, or too afraid to know. Why did she do those things? --to the Iris before the coma, to Barry, to Eddie.

How did she know he liked her? He brought her home for dinner. Her fifth-grade class brought lots of firsts. Joe finally let her wear shorter skirts as long as she wore opaque tights. It was a trade-off, but she relented and picked out her new school clothes with added eagerness and excitement. Once she brought her dad clothes shopping with her. He just sat in the teen girl’s lobby, looking uncomfortable. She came out twirling in front of Joe. “Do you like this?” And again, “How about this one?” She caught the smile he tried to hide, so she knew he approved. It was with one of those short skirts and a twirl away from her locker that she bumped into him. She almost dropped her books, but he was quick, and caught them.

“Ah… thanks,” she said. She straightened out her books and was about to leave, she had to get to class, but he just stood there gawking at her. She hit her forehead, saying, “Duh, where are my manners? Hi. I’m Iris. Iris West.”

He still stood taking her in. She stuck out her hand and that seemed to break the spell he had come under, and he extended his hand as well. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Barry Allen.” They started walking down the corridor in the same direction.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” she asked him.

“Sorta. I’m just not at school all day, so not too many kids know me.”

She looked at him puzzled.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m in a small science class. The five of us work on hypotheticals.” He started talking that way, dorky and adorable. She never forgot the first time he talked his science to her. It was their first day. That’s how she knew it was important to him.

Eventually they became friends that year. On one of those days, he asked Iris over to his house for dinner. “We’re having tacos tonight and that’s one of my favorites, so I thought you might….”

“Sure, Barry,” Iris said. “What time do you want my dad to bring me over?”

When she got there that evening, the adults introduced themselves, then talked for a while in the foyer. She stood with her host, they blushing and smiling at each other.

At the dinner table, Barry pulled out Iris’s chair. “Thank you,” she said. He was cute in his manners, and she could see where he got them. Even though it was a weekday, his mom prepared a Sunday meal, pot roast, potatoes and string beans. His mother was really nice, really inviting. She made Iris feel at home. She probably changed out the tacos for the pot roast, Iris surmised.

She sat and talked with the Allens and enjoyed their interactions. She loved how they told stories. She especially liked when they pulled her into their conversations. Like she and her dad talking about police work, murders, dead bodies, blood, guts, and CCPD gossip, the Allens talked about medicine and science and poetry from Mrs. Allen, while Barry threw in esoteric knowledge about dinosaurs.

She enjoyed the dinner with them. They made her feel at home, so she extended an invitation to her dinner table and her home to Barry Allen. By the end of that school year, they almost hung out with each other exclusively. They had friends, yes, but they kept their friends at school. But the Allens and the Wests had become close.

And Nora Allen was the best. She had monogrammed stationery and sent her and Joe thank-you notes whenever Barry stayed for dinner, or the time they all came as a family. She set her table with cloth napkins, and when Iris was over for dinner, she always made Iris her favorite mint chocolate chip cupcakes. Sometimes she and Barry sat at the kitchen table while his mom washed the dishes. Sometimes Nora Allen sat at the table with Barry and Iris, and read poetry. Iris would always place her elbows on table, her face in hands and listened. The last time the three of them were together, it was to a Saturday matinee play. She remembered.

And as fate would have it, no one knew this would be the last time the families got together, but Barry and his parents invited Iris and Joe to their cabin way outside of Central City.

It was a big, rustic cabin that accommodated their noise and adventures that summer. Nora Allen and Joe were the cooks. Henry fished with Barry and Iris down by the pond and showed them how to scale and clean the fish. Before dinner, they and Barry’s dad hiked through the woods adjacent to his property. When they got into the trail, she remembered she tripped and almost fell but she scraped the palm of her hand catching branches and brittle stems fighting the fall. Mr. Allen had walked a few paces ahead of them, so when he heard the commotion behind him and got back to them, Barry had her palm in his hand, his first aid kit opened in his lap. Both she and Mr. Allen watched Barry clean and dress her little scratches and an obvious bruise. “There,” he said.

“Thanks, Barry."

Then, inexplicably, he kissed her dressed hand.

“You were doing okay there, Slugger, until you decided to contaminate her dressing.”

Barry looked at Iris, caught, as his dad smiled.

“What?” Barry said. Mr. Allen shook his head, still smiling, saying, “Let’s get back to the cabin.”

When they returned, Mr. Allen hosted a big fish fry outside where everyone sat around a fire and ate that day’s catch, drank root beer, made smores, sang songs and talked and laughed. They kept the backyard creatures up till the small hours of the night. When Barry’s mother finally succumbed to her yawns in front of the dwindling fire, Henry put the fire out and everyone headed inside for bed.

She remembered Barry’s parents in the main bedroom and her dad in the guest room. She and Barry slept in the living room, Iris bundled up on the sofa, and Barry just beside her on the floor. She remembered she and Barry making a pact, a promise that their families would come back to the cabin every year. But that’s not how life treated them, and that next year, a very sad Barry Allen came to live with her and her dad—at the West’s house. And here she was again.

The lights went on in the living room. The screen door creaked open. “Come, Iris.” Once in, she sat down her suitcase, and for a second, with his haircut, his crisp white shirt, his on-a-date-with-Becky-Cooper-tie, his dark dress trousers, he looked like her newly-wed husband. “I had to check the house,” he said. He peeled off his jacket, then threw it in the chair. Then he made a fire in the fireplace. He stood, hands in pockets, gazing into the flickering flames. He backed away still watching the flames dance. He seemed restless. He took off his tie and threw it to where his jacket lay. Finally, he went to the window to gaze out into the black night. She followed him. “Barry, please, say something to me. If you want me out of your life I’ll go. I just want to make sure we understand each other before you do. There’s a first time for everything, and for us, this is it.”

Barry stood calmly, matter-of-fact, accepting everything. He turned to her in a quiet countenance. “Do you love him?” he asked. Quietly, ready to let go.

“I… I don’t think so.” And when she said that, he breathed easier. If she loved him, there would be nothing for her to think about.

“I don’t know why… I married him. I think… I was obligated to. Or, at least I felt I was. Barry, you don’t know what it feels like to watch someone you love die.” She quickly added, “I didn’t mean… I… know you… Barry, I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he said, he understanding the loss of his mother with that violent strike through her, the way Iris probably felt the loss of her best friend, her family, but with the violence of a lightning strike, putting him forever in a coma, for all she knew.

She went to the window. They stood standing, watching each other. “The cabin is the same,” she said. “But smaller, of course.” They had such a past. He could be thinking anything. So much between them, so many firsts. And this was also a first. “A really big mess, huh?” she said as she looked up at him, gazing in his eyes for a clue, how it hurt her to realize that, after all these years, she did not know what he thought, how he felt about her at this moment.

“Forgive me for leaving you there—at STAR Labs.”

“You had every right to live your life.”

“You see… that’s what Eddie said… so, I don’t know.”

“We shouldn't have run away from Joe. We owed him an explanation.”

“There wasn’t time.” She had almost forgotten that she was still in her wedding dress, that she had been married to Eddie Thawne for eight hours. She lowered her head and said quietly, “Eight hours is like a work day. I feel off the clock.”

He looked at her quizzically. She stepped to his side, where the crinoline of her dress crushed into his side. She held him around his waist again, dress still rustling. Lean down, Barry Allen. I need to tell you something. I want to tell you the truth.”

He leaned down because, how could he not? How could he say no to Iris? It was impossible. He gave her his ear, not looking at her, but out into the black night, just beyond the expansive picture window, not wanting to hear hurtful words, if they were to come, and watch her say them. He listened intently and heard her say, “I love you, Barry Allen. And I always have.” He didn’t move, but took in the quiet of her words, the matter-of-factness of them. The grand simplicity in them; his heart raced. “But you’re my best friend, Barry. You already know how I feel. We always knew… about each other.”

He sighed, turning slightly from the window, just to get a glance at her. “Then why did we mess this up?”

“You didn’t mess it up. I did. I always put it on the lightning strike or the coma, but it was me.”

“We both did.” He sighed again, and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I had forever to tell you how I felt. After the coma, it was too late.”

“We both did, Barry.”

“Fear of losing you,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said. “I’d rather be your best friend than no friend. I really loved it when you came to live with us. I really loved that you became a part of our family. I loved that you were a part of my life.

“If you were my boyfriend, we would fight and grow apart. You would find another girl, and I would lose you as a friend. I always wanted you in my life, Barry. I was afraid that things may not work out, and I’d suffer the fate of my friends: hating on my boyfriend, then getting another one to hate, then another one to hate.”

“That may be what you wanted,” he said. “But that’s not what I wanted. I wanted us to take a chance on us. To risk our friendship… for what was really in our hearts.”

They were both quiet for a while, in their own separate circumstances. She still heard Barry’s words. _To risk their friendship for what was in their hearts._ Finally, she said, “Come here, Barry, sit down.”

She pulled him from the window to the big overstuffed sofa. They sat down together, like two children, he with eyes expectant and tender. She reached for her honeymoon suitcase. She opened it and began rifling through her silkie undies, her tomorrow’s dress as the new wife. She stopped, then slowly pulled out a box. Really, rectangular, with the richness of Tiffany blue. It even had a bow. She offered it to him. “You bought me a present?” he asked, slowly retrieving the little speculative box from the offering of her palm. She clasped her hands and watched as he untied the bow. Then he opened the box. He looked at her with a dry smile. “You bought me a box of condoms on your wedding day?”

She laughed a little. “No, Barry. You’re a CSI. Check it out.”

He examined the box. Inside the cover, a script in Iris’s handwriting said, From me to you. Always. The One, The Only - 2008. He watched her, half-amazed, half confounded. “Iris, these condoms are seven years old.”

“The first time I ever bought condoms,” she said, smiling sentimentally. “The first time I really thought about them. Remember, Barry, or are we forever going to pretend that that never happened?” Her expression was accusatory and helpless. “You introduced me to my sexual feelings.”

They watched each other, examining each other’s eyes. “You mean… on the floor… that time… when we got wrapped up in my comforter?”

“Yeah. Remember?” Her eyes sparkled. “I was cold and you went and got your comforter for me and I liked that, so I was already feeling tender towards you. We wrapped up in it on the sofa, trying to finish the movie, then trying to get comfortable we got tangled up in it and we both fell to the floor.” He watched her face with the knowledge that they both knew but kept quiet for years. Why? “What I remember was lovely, Barry. It was the first time I had felt your whole body. I mean, we always hugged – happy birthday, Merry Christmas, thanks for helping me with my math” but those were just your arms. Then in the car, we’d bump knees, thighs sometimes. On the sofa, you’d catch me as I fell asleep on your shoulder…”

“But that night… we laughed so hard after falling to the floor. You, long gangly kid, and me realizing your weight, buried underneath you, still laughing… But when we stopped laughing… It kinda trailed off really… really softly. We were holding each other, not pretending that we were best friends anymore. You holding me, Barry, was different from giving me a hug. For the first time, I felt the difference.” He lowered his head. Yeah, he remembered that. For good or for bad, maybe it sealed their fates.

The afternoon was evening now. Eddie had to be beside himself—and angry--not knowing where Iris was, but knowing that she was with him. And Joe too. Rushing up the stairs to see him take Iris away. The reception hall had to be empty by now. What did Joe tell Eddie? What did Eddie tell the guests, Barry wondered. What will they say to their friends when they return to Central City?

“We were only sixteen. I want to say I’m sorry that it happened, but I’m not," Barry said. "The truth is, it meant everything to me.”

You had such a long, hard sixteen-year-old body. To feel you stretched out over me. It startled me at first, the first time a boy on top of me. It made my body tingle though….”

“Iris….”

“And then you kissed me, not like the cheek ones, but with your tongue and mouth. And then you started to move.”

She never knew boys could move like that. She had loved Barry’s grinding hips. They had a slow intense start, a deep rhythm to them, pressing into hers into his comforter, nudging hers to come alive, to be with his, with an urgency, as if he needed to, had to. Her hips had to follow his. She held him, but he held her tighter, until she felt the thing that she had never known, never felt – his hard-on, like her friends say it, hard and wanting her, between her thighs and rubbing against her crotch, their innocence only protected by his sweats and her silk panties. She remembered closing her eyes, holding him tightly, kissing his face. She heard him whimper, she heard him whisper “Iris. Oh, Iris.” Helplessly, until the sixteen-year-old hearty boy, forever in love with the girl beneath him, ejaculated in his sweats. They lay motionless for a moment, not knowing what to do next. She still felt the tingle between her thighs, new to her body, awakening the teen girl. The movie was still on. The living room was dark, except for the tv’s light. He said honestly, “I’ve got to change my sweats before Joe finds us this way.” She remembered him raising himself gingerly off of her and left the living room. When he came back, they pretended to be best friends again, and didn’t mention it, just that, they sat closer that night as they watched the end of the movie.

“It was the first time I ever had sex. It was the best sex I ever had, Barry.”

“It wasn’t sex, just my teen awkwardness, and me wanting you,” he said.

“I remembered it as the best sex. I guess I idealized it, being the first time, I don’t know. But a few weeks later, I went out and bought you those.”

He pulled one of the condoms out of the box, all of them assembled like orderly science slides. There was a customized note on each condom in Iris’s stationery script. Barry read, “To Barry, From Iris. I love you.”

He sat, looking at the condom, and reading the note, over and over again. “Why are you giving these to me now. “You’re Mrs. Eddie Thawne.”

She turned away from him and looked down into her hands, searched them for her answer. “I don’t know… Maybe…you and me… and Eddie… and Becky Cooper.” She couldn’t help it, but tears welled up in her eyes.

They sat like that, in their own thoughts and mistakes, she wiping away her tears and figuring out how they could have changed things. Barry reached into his pocket and gave her his forgotten handkerchief.”

“Thanks,” she said, sniffing, looking at him sheepishly, and the room grew quiet again. Whose fault was Eddie? Was he Iris’s? Or the coma? Was Eddie Barry’s fault? Why did someone have to be at fault?

“…and Becky Cooper,” Iris said again, out into the quiet, betraying her thoughts. “Remember, the tenth grade? When you brought her home for dinner that night, when she came through the door with you…you… she caught me off guard. I was shocked… mad… surprised at myself, shaken, mad at you again…

“Why? he asked.

“You invited her to dinner, the way you invited me to dinner—when we were ten.”

“But that wasn’t the same,” Barry said. “I invited her to dinner because she was my lab partner and we had worked all afternoon, hard, on a serious project. So, I asked her to come have dinner with us. Not because… I had a crush on her.”

“Still, she sat beside you, all pretty and nice and sweet… and smart. I was so mad.”

“Why, Iris? You always said I should find a girlfriend and when I did…”

“So, you thought of her as girlfriend material?” They both sat quiet for a while. He laughed. But she didn’t. She sighed and confessed, “I lied about her, about her not being right for you. That’s what really hurt. She was just right for you. In the tenth grade, she seemed sweeter than me, she was taller than me, and smarter than me. And I cried and cried every time you went out with her.”

“So why did you encourage me? You said I should go get a girl.”

“That was before we fell from the sofa to the floor. And because… I was being scary… and dishonest with you… and with myself.

“She sat at the dinner table, you between us. I remember her bringing up formulas that you were working on. I think she just brought those up because she knew I wouldn’t understand.”

“So, she’s not a sweet girl? Iris…” He looked at her in disbelief. “Are we talking about high school?” He couldn’t believe that he was still angry. “How about that guy—”

“No!” Iris interrupted. “I know who you’re talking about. You knew I didn’t like him.”

“You went on a date with him.”

“To make you jealous.”

“You never had any reason to make me jealous, Iris. You just had to choose _me_.”

“I didn’t know that then, Barry. But Becky knew. She was smart enough to choose you.”

“Iris….”

“Did you sleep with Becky Cooper that next year, in the eleventh grade?”

Barry didn’t answer. He kept his head turned away. “She’s always hogging your attention, I see, even now.”

He turned to her. “Yes,” he said, to end the questions about Becky Cooper. She wasn’t the girl that he couldn’t live without.

“So, you considered her your girlfriend in the eleventh grade.”

“Kind of,” he admitted.

It was that six weeks program in Massachusetts and he had qualified for a seat. Iris was so proud of him, but nervous just the same. Six weeks away from Central City High, away from Central City, away from Joe, away from her. Barry and Becky and M.I.T. Intensive Study Theoretical Science Program. Kids so smart, only a few kids nationwide got in. Like Barry Allen. And Becky Cooper.

“How about your sophomore year at CCU? Did you sleep with Becky in your dorm room?” He turned, wondering how… “You don’t have to answer. The answer is yes. She told me.”

“Why did she do that? That was between me and her.”

“Why do you think, Barry?”

Barry thought for a while, then shrugged. The room was warm, glowing with that evening, with Barry’s fire still burning in the fireplace, of questions, answers, revelations. Finally, he said, “We being… the way we are with each other?” They were wondering about the way they were.

“Yes. It’s the way we are, Barry. The way we have always been. Neither one of us is suitable for anybody else. Because I’ll always be in your relationships and you’ll always be in mine. We took a sweet Becky Cooper and changed her into a jealous mean girl who loved to rub it in whenever she slept with you. Which is more than you’re willing to tell me. It’s why Eddie cut you out of the picture.”

“What?” Barry glanced at Iris.

“The _literal_ picture,” she said. “He cut our picture. I was so mad at him. He could have had any picture that he and I had taken. We had loads of selfies, but no, he wanted _that_ picture. He cut you out of it and put me on his desk.”

“I remember that,” Barry said, recalling Thawne’s and her argument at Thawne’s desk. “What did he want with our picture?”

“To cut you out of it. He just went down the middle of the picture with scissors, and you fell into the trash bin. When I saw your face in the trash bin at his office, I was so mad. I got it mixed up with him sitting in your sick room as I told him about why Tuey took it. I picked it out and showed it to Eddie when I got back to his apartment.”

“Don’t talk about you in his apartment. Please.”

I almost made him tape it back.”

“I remember that fight. You came home that night.”

She shook her head yes in a quiet moment of realization and understood something about home--where it existed, where it didn’t, and who she wanted there. And something else too: she never called Eddie’s apartment ‘home.’

She smoothed out her wedding dress, moving closer to Barry. She put her hand on his cheek, and caressed it. “Yes,” she said. “I came home that night.” He bent his head slightly, her hand slipped around his neck, his face met hers and he pressed his mouth against hers, opening her mouth with his, until the kiss grew fuller, their lips touching and tasting, tongues darting to find, to know, the other. The softness fueled the hardness of their lips, their tongues, his mouth finally knowing hers. Her wedding dress rustled as he took her down to the sofa, the length of him stretching over her, they still kissing, holding each other.

“Barry,” she whispered, and hiked up her wedding dress helplessly around his trousers. The wedding dress of vintage crinolines and rustling noise and passion now above her bare thighs.

They hungrily kissed each other on the mouth. Then a kiss here, a kiss here, a kiss here… He smothered her face with his mouth, with his kisses, and she responded with kisses of her own--sweet, tender, sad in a way, but joyful to know his honest mouth. He drew her closer still to him, placed his hand in her hair, his greedy fingers crushing the flowers woven in her curls, scattering the petals through her hair, on the sofa, down to the floor, as the sparkling hair jewelry loosened from her upswept curls, falling to the sofa, disappearing. He raised his hips and unzipped his pants and brought his shorts and trousers below his waist, while she slipped off her panties, down her thighs to her legs, her foot accidentally and mindlessly kicking her panties near the end of the sofa. Her bare round bottom felt his hands caressing its cheeks, caressing her, mindfully, over and over, then a gentle kneading, making her moan, making her his. He moved between her legs, and kissed her tenderly. She felt his full weight, his erection between her thighs. Then he grabbed her hips and he entered her. The newness of Barry was hard and sweet at the same time, gentle but intrusive all at once. His hunger for her made her moan again and again, and she accommodated his movements with her legs that went around his backside. She was in love with him all over again. “Iris, Iris….” he whispered. His hand went down to her thigh, where he caressed, then squeezed, then grabbed, and as he did, he unknowingly slipped his thumb into her satin garter and it broke, the garter becoming entangled in her crinoline. The crinoline took the pounding and the grinding of Barry’s hips into Iris, and she responded to him, yielded to his insistence. Her whole body responded to his. Her youthful mounds of breasts stood up, but pressed under the silk and satin of her dress. She reached for the buttons in the back, but couldn’t get them free. He kissed her breasts anyway, then took her covered breasts in his mouth, licking her nipples and sucking her breasts through the material, until her nipple stood wet and hard underneath the silk and satin of the wedding dress, and she rolled her head as he did the same to the other breast, the other nipple, until they were two brown mounds, with nipples, wet, standing up hard and dark, the bodice translucent with the wetness of Barry’s mouth, she still wanting Barry’s mouth. “I love you, Barry,” she said. “I love you, I love you,” over and over.

As she felt his thrusts into her, she thrusted up her hips, to his pelvis then to the shaft of his hard penis, her source of joy at this moment, making friction against her clitoris. Her hands moved down to his bare butt and squeezed it against her. He ground her into the sofa cushions, she responded with her hips grinding up at his. She started to cry, she put her arms around his neck and cried, then kissed him helplessly.” She closed her eyes. When Barry saw her eyelashes fluttering, he knew she was about to come, reaching her climax, the second time he made Iris come because he knew he made her come on Joe’s floor. Seeing her eyelashes fluttering, her lips parted made Barry come, and he quickly pulled out of Iris, because he had not been of mind to use her gift. He ejaculated between Iris’s thighs, in her wedding dress.

She heard his breathing as they lay still and she felt embarrassed that he could hear her sexual appetite for him in her breathing. She rolled her head towards his, and gently pulled her fingers through his mass of jet-black hair to settle herself, and to soothe him. After a while, she said, “Okay, this is better than when we fell to the floor.” Even though his face was turned away from hers, she could tell he was quietly smiling. “A lot better,” he said. Then he did laugh a little. She turned his face to hers. His eyes were soft, peaceful. He couldn’t stop looking at her, and she him. She said softly, like a pact, a promise, “Okay, just you and me? Nobody else?”

He couldn’t take his eyes from her. “Nobody else,” he said.

It seemed they lay that way for hours, he on top of her, but he had been stilled for just a few moments. He felt her legs come away from his bare backside, and he raised his hips from off of her. Her crinoline and wedding dress lay crumpled around her bare thighs. The jewelry in her hair had fallen between the armrest and the pillows, disappearing; the manhandled garter popped open and discarded somewhere in her crinoline. He moved his hips away, then zipped up his trousers. He got off of her and slowly raised her from the sofa, as if they would dance. But they stood motionless, then they tightly hugged each other, then stared at each other, he looking down at her, she looking up at him, they both offering their own weaknesses to each other, and their own strengths. They both remembered the last time they were in the room, both ten, innocent and happy. They could be happy again. In the soft light of his dad’s cabin. Barry kissed Iris, then swooped her up in his arms as if he was the married man taking his bride across the threshold to his bedroom.


	6. Chapter 6

All Night

They had each other all night and into the early morning. That night Iris’s wedding dress finally came off. It sat in a pile of crumpled crinoline tulle and damask white on the floor. Barry’s trousers were thrown over the back of a chair, as well as his Becky Cooper good tie and his white shirt that he bought for the occasion, for Iris’s wedding.

For the last few weeks, it had been Iris’s wedding, not Iris and Eddie. The sound of Eddie’s name with hers brought up a fury of emotions in Barry—helplessness, frustration, desperation, sadness, sometimes anger. As the days grew closer to that day—as Eddie would cheerfully say around CCPD— “getting close to that day”—Barry dug into his work, challenging himself with the harder cases. Answering Cisco’s calls to aid him in putting away a few Central City bad guys. “Barry, where’s the Flash? Have you seen that guy?” Cisco would mock after a joke about the Flash’s whereabouts. But for Barry the joke’s ravine had dried up. Finally, Cisco and Caitlin had come to understand he had to take time off, he had to get away, before he ran away, before he did something dangerous, like try to change the timeline, to change his circumstances. He had just learned how to increase his speed and had accidently turned the day back an hour. It was amazing that he could do that with his speed, with running. But if he had to run to keep her, then she was not his.

Turned out it was Iris who had run. She ran from the wedding chapel _after_ she said her vows, but she ran. After the minister had said, “I now pronounce you….” Her bosom began to fill with a panic, an attack of how she had utterly betrayed her own idea of what was right, wrong, or even fair, let alone Eddie’s or Barry’s.

Now, in the middle of the night, their lovemaking was sweet, tender. _I love you, Barry. I always loved you._ Then emphatically desperate, calling each other’s name when no one else mattered, when no one else would do. Iris heard through the night, _she never meant anything to me. Just a nice girl, Iris. Just not you. She was just not you._

He heard through the night, _don’t leave me, Barry, ever again. Please. Make the Flash honor your life with me. You may be the Flash, but Barry is my love._

When they rested in each other’s arms, they talked and laughed in muted tones. During the middle of the night, Iris was quiet and playful and promiscuously unprompted in her uncharted free form, as she kissed Barry’s nipples. “Barry,” she whispered, looking straight into his eyes. “This is the first time I’ve ever kissed a man’s nipples.” He just watched. Then she ran her tongue down his middle, to his navel and kissed it softly, then played with it with her tongue. “Barry,” she whispered, “the first time with kissing a man’s navel.” He closed his eyes, reached to where she was, played with her hair, and entangled her mass of curls, his hand allowing her curls to fall over his groin. She kissed his erect penis again and again, then took it in her mouth, and let her tongue dart around his velvety smooth erection, encircling and playing with it until she needed to suck the erection because it was Barry’s and because…. She looked to him…whispering…“First time,” he heard. His hand gently released her hair and she slowly climbed back up to him and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The blankets and sheets were kicked down to the end of the bed. The condoms sat on the nightstand. The light from the stars shone on the two lovers: the male glistening, long bodied and fit, pale and white; the female, curvy warm cinnamon in her classic beauty of short waist, long legs, butt high and round for his hands at any moment, the light from the stars presenting all of her beauty to him.

At one point during the night, like a confession, he heard her puncture their silence with, “I don’t want you to think that Eddie was a terrible lover… he was okay,” she continued as Barry turned away from her words. “I just want you to know how I have enjoyed you, and why I love all of my firsts with you.”

They both lay quiet after that. Then she felt Barry move her closer to him. She felt his lips on her cheek. Then he turned to the window, to enjoy the light skimming across his best friend, his love, and she heard him say, “Thank you, Iris.”

It was early morning dawn. They both lay naked under the sheets. Iris leaned across Barry in the beginning of a morning that she was just now able to describe. She was supposed to be Eddie’s. Instead, she was Barry’s. She watched Barry sleep. Her breasts brushed across his chest as she reached for her phone on the night stand. He rustled up, then caught her turning on her phone. She had turned it off when she packed it for her honeymoon suitcase. She was glad she had forgotten about it, until in the middle of the night, she threw on Barry’s shirt and retrieved their phones.

When she went into the darkened living room, their suitcases looked so innocent, so proper standing together, so appropriate for a honeymoon. She went through both suitcases, retrieved the phones and climbed back into bed with Barry.

She watched him sleep now. He seemed peaceful. “Barry,” she whispered. “Barry. I missed a call from my dad.

“Barry?” She got closer to him and kissed him. He rustled awake slowly. “Iris…” He turned to her. “Come here…” He reached for her and pulled her close to him.

“Barry,” she whispered again. “I missed a call from my dad.”

Barry opened his eyes. “Shit. Did he leave a message?”

“No, just one missed call. I don’t think he knew what to say. Turn on your phone, Bear.” But Barry asked Iris, “Is there a missed call from Eddie?”

“Yeah, three, but closer to the reception time. I think he just wanted me to hurry back to the reception banquet room.”

“And he left no messages?”

Iris searched through her messages then answered, “Yes. One.”

“Let’s hear it,” Barry said, not wanting to hem and haw, just wanting to get it over with.

“No,” she said nervously. “Not yet. What about you?”

Barry scrolled through his messages. “Like ten missed calls from him last night. No message.”

Iris sat up in bed while Barry still lay under the sheets, his long body stretched out. Iris clicked on Eddie’s message and they both listened. Eddie was in the middle of a cry. He must have been crying as he called her. There was a sadness about his crying. To be caught in the middle of his crying, like how long had he been crying before he pressed her number in his phone? He was obviously hurt, but Barry also heard anger. Barry didn’t sit up. He was surprised just how long Eddie cried in his phone to Iris. But no, he was not surprised at all. Eddie finally exclaimed, “I can’t forgive you, Iris!” Then the phone fumbled, as if he was having a time of it trying to turn it off. They were both quiet, but Barry had no messages from Eddie, just a string of missed calls. He put his phone on the bed between him and Iris, and that’s when Eddie’s number came up. Iris’s eyes widened and she stared quietly at Barry as he answered it. “Eddie.”

“You son of a bitch.” Eddie’s voice was steady and even, not loud at all. “We will rock and roll.”

“We don’t have to. We’re not enemies.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said again. Then the line became quiet, then, “This is not the same!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I took your girl. Okay I rubbed it in. But you took my wife!”

“Eddie….”

“My wife, Barry! She marries me to walk out of the chapel to go fuck you?! You consummated my marriage? With my wife? On my wedding night? Because that’s what they’ll say!”

“Eddie,” Iris butted in.”

“Shut up!” was Eddie’s booming voice. “I knew this shit was going to happen.” His voice trailed off, still in disbelief. He abruptly hung up. He immediately called Barry back. Barry said nothing. He just let Eddie speak. Eddie said: “My mother has contacted a judge friend of hers. I’m annulling this marriage, this farce, this trick you and your girlfriend played on me. I took your girl. You took my wife. Okay, all’s fair in love and war, right, Barry?”

Iris tried to cut in, to calm Eddie down, but she admitted to herself, finally, that yes, married or not, this was going to happen between the two of them.

“Shut up, Iris.” Eddie’s voice was cold, steady. “Ordinarily, the judge said an annulment would take a few weeks _at its earliest_ , but I guarantee to you both, I’ll have these papers in a few days. I’ll call Barry. Barry, take Iris to Joe’s when I call. She’ll sign the papers there. Then we’ll be finished. We’ll be through. As if we were never married. And of course, we never really were.”

Eddie hung up the phone. Iris started to cry, and Barry held her.


	7. Chapter 7

Honeymoon

So, Barry and Iris waited on Eddie’s annulment papers. Barry had taken two weeks off from CCPD thinking that he would need to lick his wounds, and Iris should have been on her two-week honeymoon from CCPN with Eddie Thawne. But lightning strikes are powerful physical entities. They forever change things. And people. But some things remain the same.

He awakened because he turned for Iris; the sunlight hit him in the face. His hand came up to his eyes, blocking the morning rays. He got out of bed “Iris?” He walked out into the hallway for the kitchen, but heard her calling from the bathroom, “Bear!” He knocked on the bathroom door. “There are no towels in here, Bear.” He turned to the linen closet and rummaged through it grabbing an armful of towels. When he entered, she peeked from behind the curtain and his heart became full, watching her smiling while taking in her glistening naked body, his petite and curvy girl, her round breasts, her round high hips enticed him, covered with soap bubbles. He dropped the towels to the floor, took off his shorts and climbed in.

“Barry!” She started to laugh, but it was at the recent spontaneity of their lives. Feeling the happiness of this change, he ran his hands over her butt, then cupped her cheeks and drew her closer to him. His arms ran up and down her sudsy curves, delighting him with just the start of a morning’s happiness, easy and elegant. He was happy that she was in his life. “You’re stealing my suds,” she said, looking like she may be happy that she was in his life as well. “Now I have to re-lather,” she teased.

He grinned. “I’ll give you mine. How about that?” But his lather had been hers. She gave up and started to hug him. They hugged like that for a while. She feared her tip toes in the slippery tub, so she kept her feet flat and pulled him down to her where his face lay in the crook of her neck.

“Are we going to do this all day every day?” she asked, her full lips in a fake mockery of his lust for her. “Ah… yeah,” he said. By all day every day, he knew she meant make love, have sex, kiss and hold each other. Make up for lost time. The dam of desire for Barry since high school had broken for Iris, and for him too, since forever. She smiled and looked up at him and said, “And don’t you forget it.”

When they both left the shower, Iris sat on the bed and blotted out the water in her damp hair. Then she put the towel down, stopped, and watched Barry dress. She had seen Barry for a few seconds in his briefs and shorts as a teen at Joe’s house, trying to make it from the bathroom to his room without a robe, or as she got to the top of the stairs, he would close his bedroom door and she would briefly see his briefs. But she had never seen him slip them on, or get into his trousers. And until recently, she had never heard him zip up his pants.

He turned around smiling. He was grabbing his undershirt from his bag. When the undershirt went over his head, Iris realized that Barry always had a cute, perky butt, but now she could stare at it out in the open. “Barry, I need clothes,” she said. “I didn’t pack enough.”

They never talked about why her suitcase was nearly empty. Or about the possibility that she had planned to leave Eddie even before she married him.

He sat at the end of the bed, and motioned her over. She got off the bed, then went and sat in his lap. He loved when her hair was wet and her curls puffed up. He remembered when they were in high school and he use to watch her do her hair sometimes. Actually, she’d call him into her room as she stood in front of her vanity mirror and asked him to hold her mirror from behind her, while she ran her fingers through her hair with her hair mousse. Then she pulled the front of her hair back shiny and straight with a head band, sometimes silk, sometimes a hard acrylic that stopped at her ears. He’d keep the mirror high enough but far back enough so that she could see her big curly twists from behind. She always looked like a doll to him after that hairstyle, her luscious and full hair curly twisty puffy in the back, touching her shoulders, the front pulled back straight with the mousse and caught by the headband. He used to protest that ritual. _No, Iris, I’m not your hairdresser._ But the truth was that he loved standing that close to her, inhaling her hair pomade, inhaling _her_ , so close to running his fingers up the nape of her neck, into her curls, and grabbing handfuls. Her arms went around his neck. Her damp hair grazed his face.

“Are you going to pull your hair back into those twists thingys?”

She said, “I might.”

He smiled. “I thought we were going to start our tourist adventure,” Barry said. But it felt like a honeymoon to Iris. “Okay,” she said.

Since they had days and not weeks, to see Eddie, sign papers, and become single again, they decided to tour and enjoy the town, to see if they remembered it.

And they did this for days. On some mornings, they went to a franchise pancake house so Barry could put away the thousands of calories that his metabolism needed. Then they walked happily through the cobblestone streets of downtown holding hands as Iris pulled him into this clothing shop and that boutique for new clothes. The last stop was small and quaint but with first rate inventory. They went in and spent time and money on good hiking boots and warm clothing.

Lunchtime, Barry and Iris laughed at each other’s jokes and stood outside under a cloudless sky that kissed the forgiving autumn, in line to truck food. They ate tacos as they walked together to their next tourist venue. Evenings, Barry and Iris enjoyed dinner in the town’s best eclectic restaurants. Afterwards, they would catch a classic movie in the town’s only family cinema spot. They ate popcorn, then held buttery hands while they watched decades old movies. But then finally, they’d run to the town’s only wine shop to buy a bottle of the town’s best rustic red wine. They loved savoring all of their days in the town until dusk disappeared into the night. They would always save the best for last. They would go back to the cabin, lay a palette down by the fireplace, drink wine together, talk some, hug, kiss, lay down on the palette, and then make love.

Each day they checked their phones for Eddie’s number giving instructions when to meet him with his mother, their judge friend, their judgments about her, their misplaced anger towards Barry, and a head full of not knowing what they were all going to do after the papers were signed, and presented to the clerk of the court.

To their surprise, in the middle of the week, maybe Wednesday, because they worked at pointing out the newness of their days, enjoying, discovering the cracks and crevices of their changed lives, and delighting in and falling back on their stand-bys, they came across a Big Belly Burger, hidden down a narrow street, from the open pristine town’s main street, pretending that civilization had not nicked the town. They rushed in, savoring their grease and salt air of lunch familiarity. They stood in line and bought four double cheeseburgers, four large fries, two strawberry shakes, and Barry bought extra fries and three apple pie wedges, and Iris grabbed a handful of ketchup packets and napkins, and stuffed some in both bags. They laughed in delight as the worker handed them their two overstuffed, oversized bags of familiar city bad-eating deliciousness. They ran to the center of the town’s park, Barry spread down his jacket and Iris sat her sweet butt on it and they opened up the bags. This was one of their best days. The sky was bright and blue, the town’s temperature warmer than usual. They passed burgers, shared fries, split Iris’s shake, and talked to each other, and laughed at each other’s jokes, exchanged their dumb work stories, work gossip, and became quiet when they wondered what kind of gossip went through CCPD, or CCPN. Like: _What now? Come again? They did what?!_

Iris lost her appetite some. Barry finished her fries. She kissed him, then licked a little ketchup from the side of his mouth. He reached for a napkin and his hand came up. “Oh, sorry. I’m not trying to be gross.”

She laughed. “Barry, do you realize how much you’ve eaten, like—so much!”

“There,” he said. “Caught you looking beautiful.”

She gave him a smile for the comment. “I love spending my time with you. I’ve been pretending this is our honeymoon.”

“We’ll have one, Iris.”

“But this will always be our first one. Remember the waitress at the Caretaker’s Inn? She thought we had just got married.” Barry didn’t say anything, just watched Iris because he knew her and knew there was something she wanted to say. He asked her, and she answered, “Yes, I have two things I need to say. The first one is… my dad.”

“I know you’ve been letting his calls go to voice mail.”

“Yep.”

“Joe loves you.”

“Well, then why did he….he knew how we both felt, and he just left us to figure it out by ourselves. He’s the parent, and we were kids. What if something awful had happened?”

Barry sighed. “Joe is old school. He gets nervous talking about sex where his daughter is concerned.”

“How did you know I was talking about sex?”

“Well…because that was always…there...the promise or the threat of it…in the house with us.”

“With you, since forever, Barry. And with me at least since high school.” She did a double take. “Are you blushing, Barry Allen?”

“So, when you brought that soup up to me, and fed me spoonful by spoonful, you got something out of that too.”

She laughed a little. “You see I’ve never been back in there… until now. I scared myself.”

“But why are you mad at your dad? We did this, Iris. Not Joe.”

“He could have made us face our fears in high school. He could have said, ‘Okay you two need to fuck, or things are going to get messy when you grow up, and you won’t be any good for anyone else. So find out if you two are any good for each other.’”

“You know Joe would have shot me if I did anything like that to his baby girl, so you know he wasn’t going to _suggest_ it.”

“Barry Allen, you know what I mean. He should have helped us understand what we were feeling for each other, but more importantly, Barry, _why_ we felt the way we did. That why could have guided us, in our relationship, or with others. It’s more than, ‘he’s cute with a cute perky butt,’ it’s more like ‘he’s kind and gentle and he will get beat up trying to protect me.”

“You know what, Iris, you’re right, and maybe Joe is thinking about that. But we’re not going to put on Joe everything that happened. Because we’re no longer kids.”

She gave Barry another smile. “You’re right, too. So, I’ll call my dad later.”

“And the second thing you had to say?”

She said plainly, “I don’t know what it is. But it’s important that I know. It’s important for us.”

Her eyes followed him up as his tall and lanky frame unfolded and his six feet and then some stood over her. He reached down for her. She got up holding his hand. She retrieved his jacket where she had sat. They searched for and found a trash receptacle and discarded their trash and came away holding hands.

When they got back to the cabin, Iris surprised Barry with a present. It was one of her shopping boxes that he thought was hers. “No,” she said, “grinning, “I bought this for you.” He took it out of her hands, narrowing his eyes in a mock suspicion. He brought the relatively big box up to his ear and jiggled it. She laughed. “I’ll give you a hint. Go in the bath room, take off your clothes and come back wearing my present.”

“Well, your last present was seven-year-old condoms, and a few of them broke, Miss West, so maybe there’s nothing in this box?”

She giggled, and pushed him in the direction of the bathroom. “Go.” He was leaving, but he turned around suddenly and gave her a vulnerable smile, then a quick kiss, and she understood his tender feelings, his mortal mood; she felt them too.

That night, Barry felt good in his silk pajamas. She wrapped herself around him all night.

But finally, it was the last day of that first week, a Sunday, that caught them—they had forgotten about it for a while--when Barry actually opened the cabin door to a private courier.

He brought the package to the kitchen where Iris was putting away the dishes. She closed the last cabinet drawer, eyes wide, staring at the wide brown envelope. “It’s about the annulment,” she said. She and Barry had not been on their honeymoon after all.

He placed the package on the table. “Yes.”

“Now that it’s here…. They both stood in the kitchen saying nothing, with Iris’s marriage between them. She said, “Excuse me, Barry.” And she left the kitchen.

A few minutes later, Barry knocked on the bedroom door and waited. Finally, she opened the door. “Can I come in?” She moved aside and was quiet while he got their palette from the chair. With the palette under his arm, he took Iris’s hand. “Come on,” he said softly. She followed him out to the living room and watched him make their favorite nice and cozy palette bed. He pulled her down to the floor with him and they sat together, both watching the fire flicker for a while before she rested her head on his shoulder.

Later that night, she awakened. He was still asleep on the palette. She wanted to kiss him, but feared waking him. She got up and retrieved Eddie’s legal papers. She sat cross-legged on the palette close to where Barry slept and with nothing but the light from the fireplace, she began to write down her reasons why the one-day marriage of Iris West and Eddie Thawne should be wiped out, as if it never happened.


	8. Chapter 8

Lightning Strikes

_Lightning strikes Barry in Winter. Winter through Spring--Eddie discovers Iris, then visits her in Barry’s sick room. Four months have passed and she has said no to his advances all four months. She has to stay, she needs to stay, no, she wants to stay in Barry’s sick room, with him, to watch over him. On the fifth month, she is happy in a sad way to see Eddie who asks if he can keep her company as she looks after Barry. Autumn--Barry wakes up. Autumn to Winter it stresses her to see her boyfriend and her best friend clash. Even though, sometimes, she is confused about who is who. But on bad days with Eddie, she understands that he could never be her best friend. Why was that? At Christmas, she and Barry make time to be alone to exchange their presents. It’s their tradition and they agree they want to do this alone, so they exchange their presents before others arrive. He gives her his symbol—a ring, but distorts it by disguising it as a necklace. Eddie sees it around her neck and gives her his symbol—a key, but not to his heart, to his apartment. That’s why Barry’s ring always felt like love to her. Eddie’s key always felt like sex. And control. Eddie says, ‘When are you and he going to stop living together?’ She says, ‘We’re family,’ her answer to all the hard questions regarding Barry. Eddie says, ‘Are you always going to wear his ring when you sleep with me?’ She protests, ‘It’s just a necklace.’_

_Iris is dating Eddie Thawne. That’s Barry’s euphemism for sleeping with Thawne, fucking Thawne. His feelings range from sadness to despair, so he starts to date Becky Cooper again. Wednesday nights the Classic Cinema is showing Jurassic Park. Barry leads Becky down the aisle of the movie theater, and he swears, he did not see that he was walking into the same row of seats where she sat with him. Iris looked up, in a combination of sad, surprise, happy to see him, and turns and says, ‘Eddie, it’s Barry and Becky.’ Eddie says, ‘Hi,’ but he doesn’t pretend that he’s happy to see them. ‘Sit down, you two. It’s just starting,’ Iris says. ‘Maybe they want to sit alone, Iris,’ Eddie says. ‘No, it’s all right,’ Becky leans into the aisle so she can be seen by Iris and Eddie. 'We’ll make it a double date.’_

_So, of course Barry and Iris have the inner seats, and of course, Becky and Eddie are on the outside, sometimes literally, looking in. When Barry and Iris chat during the movie, a movie theater goer in front of them will turn around and shush them. They’ll be quiet for a while. And then Iris will say ‘…and then this is when…’ and Barry will say, ‘Yeah, now they’re going to have to….’ He retreats to whispering in her ear what’s coming. At the point where they know it’s going to scare the bejesus out of Iris because they’ve seen this movie like a thousand times, she grabs Barry’s hand, and they hold hands almost throughout the remainder of the movie, with Iris’s head mindlessly, forgetfully lying on Barry’s shoulder._

_Finally, it ends, the lights come on, Eddie stands and says, ‘I’ve got to go to the station. Barry, I know you won’t mind if you give Iris a ride home… oh sorry, that’s not your home. She lives with me.’ The guys stare at each other. Becky says, ‘This has been fun, but I’m calling an Uber.’ She stands, abruptly turns away from Barry, and schooches down the row of seats and winds her way through people and disappears. Eddie goes the other way and leaves his girlfriend with Barry. And Barry takes Iris home. Because Eddie’s apartment is not her home._

_They are all jealous of each other, insecure, angry, sad, with each’s own brand of love. Eddie and Barry are jealous of each other. Sometimes they hold a truce. Sometimes not. And it’s the same with Iris and her fanciful notions of the girls Barry may have had, even though she’s only known one—Becky Cooper. The girl who knew Barry the way she didn’t at the time, but always wanted to. Becky knew this and she rubbed it in, in high school, in college. ‘You don’t know him the way I do,’ was always the last, smirky expression of frustration in Becky’s face when she turned to say, see you later, or worse, if Iris and Barry were together, see you guys later. You’re still friends, right?_

_But Eddie asked her to move in after he saw Barry’s necklace, also known as Barry’s ring, and asked her to marry him. ‘He just woke up from his coma. You have to give us time.’ Eddie complains, ‘To do what? Make up your mind as to who he is in your life.’ Then after the movie fiasco, Eddie says, ‘It’s him or me.’ It took till the spring for her to say yes_.

She sat up from the palette. She wanted to cry, choked up, tried to settle herself. She must settle her life. She turned to Barry who was still in a peaceful sleep. She whispered, “Barry, let’s go to bed.”

He stirred, opened his eyes smiling quietly. Ironically, it had been a good quiet night for them. She watched his peaceful face.

“I responded to Eddie’s decree documents. It’s ready to be filed.” She sighed. “I’m ready.”

Quietly he examined her face. He took her hand, his thumb playing with her palm, then stroking her fingers. “I’ll call his courier as soon as day breaks.”

She held on to his hand. It settled her. “Thanks,” she said, but with disquiet in her brows. He patted the palette and she lay back down beside him. He gently ran his hand up and down her arm until, after a few moments, they both fell asleep.

Days passed into their last day at the cabin and no more eating out. She awakened to the smell and sizzle of Barry’s cooking. She inhaled his hearty steaks and buttery eggs and stove top old fashioned brewed coffee. The coffee was strong and calling her. Any other morning, she would have jumped right out of bed and threw on Barry’s sweat shirt. But on this morning, she took her time. For some reason, she was pensive and oddly sad. As she was about to leave the bedroom, she caught herself in the mirror. It was not her tousled hair and no make-up, but she looked so unfamiliar to herself at that moment, and brought her hand up to her face. She was reminded that she had taken off her wedding rings. She would carefully pack them up, and send them to him.

It wasn’t long before she sat at Henry Allen’s rustic table. But she was lucky. She had Barry and his lovely breakfast. “This is our last day here,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, mellow in his mood.

She put down her fork and brushed his hand. “Do you remember we promised each other that we would come here every year?” The quietness of their words rang nostalgic.

“I remember,” he said. “I wish things had gone so that we could have.”

“So do I. I think she would have given me the best advice.”

He said, “Are you sure? We would probably be married with lots of kids by now.”

Iris said, “The best advice, and the best grandma.”

That last evening she and Barry went hiking. It was early evening but they braved the woods adjacent to Henry Allen’s property. Iris followed Barry’s trail. The late sun broke through the bare branches of oak and birch trees. She loved how he kept his eye on her by turning ever so often. His eyes were attentive but gentle when he looked at her. They hiked through the woods. She took in Barry’s long frame, and his sure footing. She followed in his trail and thought that they called the other one detective pretty boy, and he was in a way, but she only saw cocky and confidence, what she needed then. Once they got to the top of a familiar hill, Barry said, “Let’s stop here.” But there was something that reflected in his eyes for her. Concern? “Are you okay?”

She answered, “Yes.” And she tried to smile. “Just cold hands.”

Barry took off his backpack and they rested on an overturned tree trunk. Darkness was approaching, Barry could see it, but it was a way’s off, so he made a small fire. She took off her gloves and rubbed her hands together. He took Iris’s hands in his and rubbed them until she felt Barry Allen’s warmth, but also the heat of the Flash, whom she had made him neglect for two weeks. Then he helped her with her gloves and he put on his.

“Eddie left me a message, Barry. Would you like to hear it?”

He said, “Only if you want me to, Iris.”

She pulled out her phone and found Eddie’s message. He only said, “Iris, thanks.” He didn’t sound angry. Just relieved that she spared his annulment decree humiliating details. She knew Barry’s eyes watched her in concern as she put away her phone.

At the tail end of his putting out the fire, he heard Iris begin to weep. He went to her and lifted her from the overturned tree trunk, and she felt his reassuring arms, his lovely hug. She felt his lips on the side of her face with a kiss to soothe her hurt, then his arms rocked her as if to still her.

“I let him down.”

Barry was quiet, because there was nothing that he could say. She just felt his reassuring arms.

“He loved me, Barry, and I let him down.”

Barry just held her, kissed the side of her face, rocked her like she was a child. They stood that way for as long as she needed comforting, for an eternity if she needed it. And she knew that about him. She felt he would never let her down. He would always be there for her, when she cried, when she hurt, when she needed his consoling arms. She looked up at him, studied his clear green eyes, and he watched hers. She knew he would never let anything happen to her, regardless if she were with someone else, or with him. She said, “I love you, Barry Allen.”

He said, “I love you, Iris West.”

He retrieved his backpack. Then he took her hand and she followed him back onto the trail and out of the forest to Henry Allen’s cabin.


	9. Chapter 9

Grown Ups

She wasn’t a kid. So why did Barry feel like chicken soup to her right now?

It was their last night sitting in front of the fireplace. Barry sat crossed legged but he had Iris snugly up against him. He kissed her shoulders. He pulled her gown from her left shoulder. She felt his lips. As they talked and grew quiet, she would feel his lips on her.

“Barry, are you having an affair with my shoulder?”

He laughed quietly. He said, “No. Just your tattoo, or where it used to be.” Then she felt his mouth on that spot again. She said, still looking into the flickering fire, “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and you know I’ve done some dumb things.”

He shooshed her, then pleaded softly, “We all do the best that we can.”

“And we live with the consequences,” she said. “It was dumb to remove my tattoo. I regretted it immediately. It was like, I mourned its loss whenever I caught a glimpse of my shoulder and it was not there. I was sad about it for such a long time. I often thought of getting it again, but it seems so childish.”

“I don’t think so, Iris, if the heart says, ‘go get that nerdy name tatted on your back’.” She laughed, and he said, “No really, Iris. That was one of the high points in my life. You made me feel special like no other girl had. To see my name hidden the way you did that, hard to read, like your feelings at that time, but there in plain sight had I been smart enough to know that Barry and Bartholomew were one and the same guy for you. And in that beautiful Iris bloom. I should have shown you that I knew and proved it to myself. And proved it to you.”

“But you did, Barry. I can still feel your fingers tracing, not just your name, but what inspired me to want to do it. And I’m glad we waited until now. Now that we’re grownups. It feels the best when love and sex are mixed together. I don’t think we would have known that then.”

He thought some and said, “Yeah.”

After a while, she sighed.

“What?”

“I was just thinking… I love this cabin so much, Barry. I loved my time here with you, and the good memories we made here. I was going to ask if we could live here. Not go back to Central City.”

“But you changed your mind?”

“Yeah. And it’s not because of the gossip. I think we’ll be able to handle that.”

“I do too. But why not stay here? Why do you count it out?”

“We’re not ten. We’re grownups, with jobs, my dad’s house, a life in Central City. And you’re the Flash. You can’t stay out here.”

“You’d be surprised at how we could actually live out here because I am the Flash.”

“Would you?” she asked.

“If you wanted to, Iris. If I’m with you, I’m where I want to be.”

They stretched out on the palette then. They held each other, they kissed each other, and they made love.

In the middle of the night, when they were actually in bed, Barry whispered, “Iris, are you awake?”

She said, “uh huh.” Their lovemaking on the palette was all she needed. Better than chicken soup. She pulled the covers up around them. She closed her eyes and got comfortable on his chest.

She heard, “I found a place. In Central City. When we get back, I’d like to show it to you, to see if you like it.”

It was more than comfort. Placing her head on Barry’s chest felt like a peace, a happiness, a contentment. She said, “If you’re living there, I know I’m going to love it.”

“It’s in the city and it’s a loft,” he said.

“I love it already,” she said.


End file.
